Meet The Scientist - Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui

Well-being fellow, Royal Horticultural Society and postdoctoral researcher, University of Sheffield

- Jo Caird

You would think that people would jump at the chance to have someone plant up their front garden in exchange for filling in a few questionnaires and sending off some saliva samples. But when geographer Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui began recruiting Salford residents for her study into the impact of front gardens on health and well-being, she found the exact opposite to be the case.

“I knocked on a lot of doors – I think it was about 300. A lot of people told me to go away,” she says.